Advocacy group calls for reducing ‘bycatch’ in waters of Bay State

Two commercial fishing zones off the coast of Massachusetts are among the nine “dirtiest” in the country, an advocacy group has found in a report slated for release on Thursday.

The culprit, according to Oceana, the Washington, D.C.-based group, is bycatch—or the fish and ocean wildlife that commercial fishermen are not targeting but that end up in their nets.

According to the report, nine fisheries in the US, including two located off Massachusetts, are responsible for more than half the nation’s reported bycatch, which is often discarded at sea, “likely already dead or dying,” creating the “dirty” effect.

Oceana contends that bycatch is “one of the most significant threats to maintaining healthy marine ecosystems.”